Why am I so tired?

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So today was our first full day back from New York, and between having to go back to work and all of the stresses found within, I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’re both sufficiently drained. Tonight was pretty much just spent sluffing through the grocery store because we had no food, then I stayed up to try to organize some photos while Sara went to bed early because her first day of school with the kiddies is tomorrow. I hope I can get used to partially waking up at 5:30am… 🙁

Anyways, it’ll be a couple more days before I can post an official summary of our trip, but here’s the cliff’s notes – spent one day touring NYC, another at the wedding, and pretty much all the rest just spending time with Sara’s family, and it was great. I’ve never seen the girl smile so much – it made my face hurt just trying to keep up! We had such a good time I’d take her back next weekend if it were that easy. Nonetheless, now we’ve only got two weeks until we fly up to Michigan so that she can meet my family – it should be a lot of fun. All I can hope for is that she feels as comfortable with my family as I did with hers…but more on that later!

Right now it’s very, very, VERY late…

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Ok, maybe not normally, but because of the fact that I have to be up at 3am, it becomes very-cubed late by default.

I probably shouldn’t even be typing this right now, as I should be in bed trying to capture whatever moments of sleep that I can, but I’m not.

I hope I’m not too much of a grouch tomorrow morning – that would be a lousy way to make a first impression on Sara’s parents!

I think once we get moving and start touring around New York City, though, it’ll all fade away, at least for a while.

I’m not sure if I’ll have any time to post while we’re up there, but I’ll at least be doing some moblogging from the city, so keep an eye on that for some interesting sights!

Goodnight…

Revisiting Downtown Disney…

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(Ok, so this post is actually referencing our Saturday trip to Disney’s vacation kingdom – I’m just a little behind!)

Yeah – we spent Saturday evening over at Downtown Disney pretty much doing exactly what the aforementioned post describes. We shopped and got some gifts for our trip up to New York in a few days, we spent a good healthy chunk of change on candy at Goofy’s Candy Co. (best chocolate-covered strawberries ever!), and culminated the evening with a bit of Clerks 2. We ended up really lucking out because it had been raining pretty much all day with no signs of stopping through the weekend, but magically it all stopped by the time we pulled in the parking lot and we never needed the umbrella that got left in the car once! Talk about luck.

Some notable points…

Too Many People / Too Many Grouchy & Rude People
The evening actually gave me a couple of really good topics for articles that I just haven’t gotten around to writing yet, the first of which being that basically, people in large groups are unbelievably rude these days. Granted, there were a ton of people there for a hot summer’s weekend night in July – as noted by how long it took just for us to find a freaking parking spot – but I still couldn’t believe how grumpy people could be! I mean, I know you’re hot and you’re tired and it’s been a really long day, but you’re at Disney World – deal with it! I have a little rule that I adopted that says you’re not allowed to be in a bad mood while you’re on vacation – period. It’s ok to rant a little here and there (which I do), but when you’re letting your grumpiness affect everyone else’s experience around you, that’s when it’s time for a nap.

I could go on and on, but I’ll save it for the column which’ll hopefully get done tomorrow night. My last request, though – two little words: “Excuse me.” That’s all I have to say…

Food Stuffs
I couldn’t remember food costing so much more than the standard Disney fare down there, but we didn’t want to wait for Planet Hollywood so we ended up going to the Earl of Sandwich instead. The menu sounded intriguing and I thought I was getting something that would be pretty cool (Hawaiian BBQ Ham), but the sandwich itself just left something to be desired. I typically hold even the counter service at Disney a step above your normal fast food just because you’re paying twenty bucks for two people instead of ten, but I’m just not all that impressed when I leave seriously thinking that I could do the same at home.

We also split a frosted sprinkle-covered brownie that looked a lot better than it really was – replicable with a can of Duncan Hines frosting and an Easy Bake Oven. Did maybe we just catch Earl on a bad night???

Candy
Now this was where my attitude perked up just a bit! I ended up going this one alone because Sara stayed back to find our seats at the theater and take a load off, and that’s not always the best idea because it’s very easy for me to get carried away in the candy shops of Walt Disney World! An assorted box of fudge, bags of jelly beans and chocolate-covered raisins, three chocolate covered strawberries and two Mickey Mouse peanut butter cups later, I returned to my woman with enough candy to pretty much negate any exercising that we’d actually done over the previous week. I’m not even going to tell you just how much I spent…but the peanut butter cups were delicious…

Clerks 2
And the moment that I’ve been waiting for all summer…

I don’t want to write too much here because I’m also writing up something on the movie as well, but just for the record and anyone who might want to go see the latest masterpiece of the great Kevin Smith, it was hilarious. Many know that I’m a huge fan of Kevin’s work, and this was probably his best film to date. The typical crude humor is enough to put you in the aisles with laughter, and I’m not ashamed to admit that the ending gave me that shudder of “Wow – that was good.“ that I don’t feel very often. For comparison, I felt it not long ago with Cars, but before then was probably Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Hands down, if you appreciate a good dirty joke…or fifty, your money will be well spent.

Also of interest, I felt compelled to pull up the box office figures to see how the flick fared and am happy to report that they landed at $9.6 million for opening weekend. While those certainly aren’t Pirates 2 numbers, this one also only cost $5 mil in production costs to make, so they’re pretty much already in the black on this one, which is good news because the film deserves to make some money on it. It’s also amusing to hear that apparently Joel Siegel (movie critic for ABC’s Good Morning America) caused quite a stink by walking out 40 minutes into the flick in a rather boisterous manner. Kevin proceeded to blog about it, then the press had a little fun, too – check out the article, then listen to the radio sound clip for even more hilarity!

A Dick in a Mustache is Still Just a Dick (from Kevin Smith’s blog, My Boring Ass Life)
http://silentbobspeaks.com/index.php?paged=4

The Opie and Anthony Show speaks with Kevin about “The Incident,” then calls a very confused Joel Siegel

Tomorrow night I’m supposed to be packing for New York, as we’ll be rising from bed promptly at 3:00am … I can hardly wait. We’ll see if I can get around to writing anything between now and then, and if not, maybe I’ll get some down time at the airport or something. Only time with tell – play safe until then…

A blog of blogs…

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So really, where would the fun be if I actually updated this thing every day, anyways?!

House
Easily my new favorite show right now, even beating out The 4400 – I think we’ve been watching at least one episode a night for the past couple of weeks – it’s kind of Sara and my’s unwind at the end of the day activity to share, and that’s certainly nice, too. Last weekend we bought the first season of DVD and so far, I certainly haven’t been disappointed! You might think that it’s the intellectual spin that keeps me interesting, but I think it’s probably just that for the most part, House is a jerk. A jerk, nonetheless, with a purpose who isn’t going to let society or process or any other interference slow him down from dealing with the problem at hand. Kind of reminds me of, well, me, and by God, we could use a few more guys like us around!

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
I’m finally playing the latest episode of the GTA series and I can’t tell you how happy I was to learn that Sony finally snapped out of it and released it for the PS2 (it was originally a PSP-exclusive). I bought it last weekend and have been playing it a little here, a little there, and so far I like it a lot. I always enjoyed the layout of Liberty City better than Vice City or San Andreas, so it’s kind of like returning to an old childhood town…only here I’m also running down people and keeping my ho’s in line. Good times!

Exercise
Yeah, so I really haven’t been doing too well with that lately, to the fault of my trying to do approximately 1,000,000 different things in a finite amount of time each day. This evening I did about 25 minutes on the elliptical and that’s probably the first I’ve done in over a week, so I know that I need to be doing better – it’s just a matter of making the time to do it. At this point I think I have just under two more months until my follow-up with the doctor and if I haven’t shown any improvements by then, he’s going to look at putting me on medication for my high blood pressure – I really need to make more of an effort in an attempt to avoid this. My current plan is to try doing a little every night instead of doing 45 – 60 minutes every other day, with the thinking that hopefully I can just knock out my time as soon as I get home and not have to worry about missing it anymore. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if I can keep the schedule this time…

Stupid Cable Box
As of about last Sunday, it stopped working and I have no idea why. Worse yet, I really haven’t had any time to test it, so I don’t know if it’s just a problem with the box or if it’s actually my TV. For some reason it’s not outputting the video, but we’re still able to hear audio, so I’m hoping that just the ports on the box went bad or something. I tried hooking it up to the TV with just plain, old coax instead and got nothing, but I still want to try it on another TV altogether before I take it in to Bright House for an exchange. Cross your fingers in hopes that it’s the boxes fault!

Construction
The dude who lives directly below us has been doing massive amounts of construction…or something…lately and it’s really starting to get abnoxious! And I’m not just talking a little hammering or knocking things around here and there – consider buzz saws and saber saws and pretty much any other kinds of saws that you can think of that are really freaking loud. I had to go down and say something the other night because it was after 11pm and he was still going at it – he did apologize profusely, but at the same time had this look on his face like he was somewhat surprised that we could hear it from upstairs! My bet is still that they’re running some sort of woodshop out of their home instead of doing any remodeling, as this has been going on way too long and I didn’t really see any of that kind of mess when he opened the door, but even if that might be the case, how do you really approach something like that? I guess we’re just going to try to deal for now, but I told Sara that if it’s still going on come Christmas time, we’re going to have words… 🙁

Armadillo!
I saw an armadillo in the parking lot earlier this evening, and actually just about hit the little fella. I know it doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but I’d never seen one before and I’ve always wanted to, so that was kind of neat. Had I not been driving, I probably would’ve made more of an attempt to moblog the event, but my luck, he’d end up being an overly-aggressive armadillo and I’d end up making the headlines for Guy Was Too Focused on Posting to His Website and Tried to Approach an Armadillo That Didn’t Want to be Approached. Oh well – maybe next time.

Disney
Sara and I will be going over to Downtown Disney sometime undetermined at this point so that we can get gifts to take up to New York next week. I look forward to showing her the LEGO store, finding some new refrigerator magnets, and hopefully seeing Clerks 2 at the theater.

Speaking of New York…
Exactly one week from now, we’ll be up in New York state visiting Sara’s family, which I’m both excited and a little nervous for…and I think this is normal. They sound like good people, senses of humor and all, so hopefully that awkward apprehension that comes from meeting your girlfriend’s parents will pass quickly and we’ll be able to just kick back and have a good time. It’ll kind of be like Meet the Parents, except hopefully without any references to nipples. Now that would be awkward!

Also, we’re flying into New York City and spending the day touring and whatnot, and since it’ll be my first time ever in the city, I’m pretty excited about that. I really didn’t have any preference to what we saw, so I’m pretty much leaving it to Sara and her Dad to do the leading – should make for some interesting moblogging!

And Also Along the Lines of Traveling…
It has been confirmed that we’re going to be able to make the trip up to Michigan for my Grandparents 60th wedding aniversary / luau, which we’re both pretty excited about. Since I’m going to meet her family this summer, it seemed only fair that she get to do the same with my crazy bunch and what better reason to make the trip up? (Well, except for Lori’s wedding, that is, but it was a little early at that point!) We’ll only be in town for a couple of days – pretty much just a day at the luau and then the other day spent doing something with my Mom, but I’m looking forward to introducing Sara to my family and letting them see in person just why I’ve been so happy lately…at least as far as relationships are concerned!

Anywho, that should be enough updates to tide you over for one night. I’s going to bed now… :O

stupid stuff…

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So it seems like Sara and I have been arguing a lot lately, mostly over what seems to be stupid stuff in retrospect. You know the kind of fight – where you both raise your voices and point fingers, and then feel like shit about fifteen minutes later after the other person leaves the room. Those arguments where you feel like you’re dealing with a tremendously important concern at the time, but really it’s just small beans that, for some reason, you’ve decided to rant about simply for the sake of getting another’s goat. It’s not really that important, but it is, and yet, no – not really. Just let it go already…

I think stress in general is a lot to blame for it; stress, and change in general. She’s now been officially living here for just under a month, and over two in reality, and that’s still a lot to take on for a guy who’s never really lived with anybody before, much less held a relationship that’s lasted out much longer than what we’ve got going now. Don’t get me wrong – I have no doubts that we’re going to make it — this is the best relationship I’ve ever been in and I couldn’t imagine it all going away tomorrow. We keep telling ourselves that these are just the growing pains that people go through when they do this thing, but that doesn’t make it any easier when the rifts actually take place. Ugh.

I need to go buy a rose now…

An unexpected quote…

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Sara: Hey, guess what – I found out how to make lesbians!

(back story – Sara’s writing a research paper for her psychology class on the origin of sexual orientation … so yeah, I’ve been hearing all sorts of “interesting” theories for why people are gay or bisexual all day…)

Just how awesome is my girlfriend?

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Last night I was in a really bad mood. I have no idea what brought it on or what it was all about, but you know how sometimes you just get in that place where you’d rather be a grouch for absolutely no reason other than the sake of being a grouch? Anyways, that’s where I was, and here’s how my girlfriend dealt with it…


Needless to say, I’m a very lucky man. Bad mood solved…at least for now. 🙂

a long, short weekend…

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Friday
Left work early because I got a message from Sara that she felt like her head was going to explode – she’d been having a bad migrain all day and heads typically aren’t supposed to do that, so I came home to make sure that she was ok. Within maybe an hour, we were en route to the emergency room at Zephyrhills hospital because she said it just kept getting worse and worse and ultimately, I’d rather pay a little extra money than have something really bad happen. Fortunately, Zephyrhills is kind of in the middle of nowhere, so we got in and had her in front of the doctor in maybe half an hour – tops. They gave her some drugs which I’m told didn’t do crap, then gave her some considerably better drugs about an hour later which put her on Cloud 9, but at least they made her feel better. At that point, they discharged her and we went home, of course not before stopping for some McDonalds that would later end up on the side of the road approximately twenty minutes later … I guess that’s what I get for catering to her every need! She did have some toast when she got home, which quote “the chick took forty-five minutes to eat,” but at least she kept most of it down.

Overall it was a pretty scary evening – of course, nobody really ever looks forward to taking a loved one to the emergency room – but I’m happy to say that she’s feeling much better now. Whew… 🙂

Saturday
I really don’t remember much of Saturday at all, primarily because we slept rather late after being pretty much exhausted by the ordeal of the day previous. Eventually I went and got my hair cut, returned to the office to finish up what I hadn’t the night before, and bought a few things for finishing the bedroom project at Home Depot. Ended up getting completely soaked leaving Home Depot because somebody decided to have a turrential downpour two minutes before I was to leave the store, but such is life. We also watched Wedding Crashers on demand, which was so-so. I’ve got columns that I’m putting together both for the movie and for my hair-cutting experience, but I’m just too tired to work on them tonight. Also, nothing really got done on my writing website, but such is life.

Sunday
We finally arose at somewhat of a decent hour today and got a few things done around the house, but not before my wonderful girlfriend made me breakfast in bed! She claimed that it was the only way that she was going to get me out of bed, and that’s probably not too far from the truth. I got the remainder of things situated in the bedroom while she began sorting through her massive pile of belongings in the living room. She ended up pitching out quite a lot of old papers, but there’s still a ways to go. (Reminder: Rome was not built in a day.) Eventually we called it a day with the cleaning and went to pick up some groceries and also the first season of House on DVD. This is another great show that she’s managed to get me hooked on (for some reason, I seem to relate with House’s smart-ass, wise-cracking side – go figure) and I think we probably watched four or five episodes alone this weekend between the DVR and the new DVDs. We watched a lot of TV today, I’ll admit, and I’m kind of mad at myself for not getting more done, but after what took place earlier on in the weekend, you can really only expect to do so much – a lot of time gets spent just recharging and getting your bearings, and ultimately I suppose that’s ok, too…

Right now I’m debating between staying up to try and make up some lost ground or just going to bed and starting off tomorrow as a new day. It’ll all still be there tomorrow – no sense in losing any sleep over it. Good night.